Learning activities

Constructive Alignment (CA) is a model for designing educations in higher education. This is how you apply it, step by step.

Group work is not a “refreching change from just a lecture”, but a powerful form of work when people learn something new. Here are some good reasons to choose group work. And a risk to keep an eye on.

How large should a study group be?

What is best? To let the students take care of group division themselves, to let them wish for group colleagues, or as a teacher to single-handedly arbitrarily decide who works with whom?

Can groupwork be used for examinations? Is it possible to give individual grades? Are there other ways to use groupwork in teaching?

What is the purpose of the group work in your course? Microgroup, crossgroup, side task or course progression?

How do you train students to read and understand scientific articles? Here is a lesson plan suitable for a group of 25-30 students in a physical classroom.

This article by Ben Edwards in ArtsTechnica (April 6, 2023) is worth a read, “Why ChatGPT and Bing Chat are so good at making things up”. Edwards explains in clear language, with lots of details and examples, how and why large language models (LLMs) such as ChatGPT make up content. As I read this article, […]

The most important tools for meeting students face to face online are Zoom, Padlet and Mentimeter.

On the Sola@Kau website (sola.kau.se) you or your students can easily create and shape your very own website, e. g. a reflection page, blog, portfolio or similar that fits in your course context.

This is an interview that was conducted by Karin Thörne from UPE on April 6th, 2023. The interview was originally conducted in Swedish and has been translated into English by ChatGPT.

Campus teaching with some of the students present online – hybrid teaching – is very demanding for the teacher. But if you are up to the challenge, here are some advice on what to consider.

The general principle for higher education is that it is voluntary for the student. The only mandatory element is the examination. However, certain course components can be made mandatory, even if they are not part of the examination. How?

How can you best work with peer response on academic text? Peer review versus peer response. Create good text seminars. Using a reading log and three didactic questions for text analysis. — A presentation.

How do you set up a really good online course introduction ? What elements should it contain? In which order? How do we keep the students interested? How do you design a good session schedule, one that also function well when leading the session together with colleagues? Here is a commented example that can also […]

A student with generally weak language skills is not likely to solve the issues over the time period of one single course. Measures to strengthen a student’s language skills therefore need to be planned using an overall approach that looks at the entire study programme.

In the vocational teacher education, students at their VFU (Placement) have kept a multimodal digital logbook about some pre-determined assignments that are related to the course objectives. The assignments were about mind maps, assessment matrix and tripartite conversations, i. e. three different forms of reflection. (Video, 24 min., only in Swedish)

For the unaccustomed student, it is easy to drown in details when trying to read scientific text such as research articles. It ends in confusion. The student needs a clear strategy to stick to. Here, Kershav describes a useful three-step method to keep the reader’s head safely above the water’s surface.

Here is an example of how systematic language training – reading, writing, managing academic texts – have been implemented in all courses of a 1-year study programme that concludes with an independent project. We hope it will inspire you.  

It is difficult to assess laboratory elements and oral examinations in a practically manageable and legally secure manner. Traditionally, the assessment criterion for laboratory elements has only been a requirement for active participation, while the written laboratory report is what is graded. Thus, the practical part is in principle not grade-based, despite the fact that […]

Mikael Åsberg shares a scheme where future machine engineers trains each other in technical drawing. A system with controlled peer review provides less correction work for the teacher, more time with the students for dialogue and reflection and better quality of the students’ drawings. And the scheme is useful far beyond the subject of technical […]

Students were offered to do small assignments during the course. These assignments gave them extra points at the final examination. The purpose was to motivate them to engage in a relatively extensive course literature written in English. It turned out that the more assignments that students did, the better they also scored at the assignments […]

Examination arrangement where the students in a course create quiz questions for a question bank that is used in the examination.